Basin modeling concerns processes acting on rocks and fluids during the development of a sedimentary basin, including, inter alia, the simulations of sedimentation, burial, erosion, uplift, thermal properties, pressure properties, and diagenesis prediction. These simulations are generally applied to the entire basin or to large portions of it. Reservoir modeling concerns the present-day description of the rock and fluid properties in the subsurface in a localized area, with no means to calculate or describe the means by which the reservoir arrived at this state.
In the past, basin modeling and reservoir modeling have been two distinct disciplines. Among the shortcomings has been that basin models cannot be executed at the typical resolution required by reservoir models.